Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!oliveb!amiga!boing!dale
From: dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AM(iga un)IX
Message-ID: <695@boing.UUCP>
Date: 2 Apr 89 02:33:30 GMT
References: <72@snll-arpagw.UUCP> <6330@cbmvax.UUCP> <74@snll-arpagw.UUCP> <2421@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <79@snll-arpagw.UUCP>
Reply-To: dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck)
Organization: Boing, Milpitas, Ca.
Lines: 50

In article <79@snll-arpagw.UUCP> paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci) writes:
>In article <2421@sbcs.sunysb.edu> root@sbcs.sunysb.edu (root) writes:
>	Sam, the other side to your argument is this: what if, god forbid,
>	Commodore continues to undercut and screw their developers by
>	bringing any profitable product in house because it is
>	"strategic"?  This happened to all the third party disk people,
>Hi Rick.  First let me say that my response to Michael Ditto was not meant in
>any way to slight the Ameristar product.  I think you guys have been
>doing a great job considering the number of people involved.  With
>that out of the way, it is inconceivable for me to see how ANYBODY can
>put out a UNIX box in this day and age without an Ethernet card.  The
>only reason I would like to see Commodore have their own card is to
>show that they are committed to a real UNIX machine, like the 2500UX,
>
>	Perhaps the answer is to have Commodore produce "strategic products", 
>	but to price them such as to give third parties some room to stay
>	in business.  
>
>That is exactly what I would like to see.  I know that third party
>developers are the lifeblood of the Amiga.  Indeed third party

I agree that cbm should be providing CBM labeled products that they
can support and maintain. I believe in the early days of Sun, Sun
could not make all the cards they needed as well.
The expertise required to develop and maintain complex cards like
the ethernet card  takes time to create. Commodore could relable
Ameristar's ethernet cards and sell them in bundles. This would
have to be supported by Commodore's engineering and customer support
staff though. This is unlike the bundling options the marketing
dingy's do with thrid party software. When customers want to
to buy all their pieces from one vendor, the also want all their
support from the same vendor.

Given the amount of time it takes Commodore to get anything to the
market from the time it is announced, I would say Ameristar has
a good two years before they have to start worrying about competing
with something that is not vaporware.
   However creating Vaporware is one of Commodore's strengths.
The time from announcement to available for nearly all commodore
amiga products has been greater than a year. a2620, A3000, WB1.3,
A2024, PVA, AMIX, A2084, ATBridge. I think Commodore is getting better
recently, I did not see the announcement for the A4000 at the Hannover
fair, nor did I see the continued misrepresentation of AMIX running
concurrently with AMIGADOS.
   So I think Commodore is doing better, they just need to catch up
and deliver the products they have announced. (Thanks for the now
shipping 2620 boards). 
-- 
Dale Luck     GfxBase/Boing, Inc.
{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale